Of the thirty-seven newly discovered letters by Madame de Sevigne, thirty-six are primarily of literary and social interest. Since the original discovery of many of her letters in the eighteenth century, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sevigne, has been generally acknowledged as one of the greatest writers in the French language. The discovery of new letters of hers, even if they dealt only with purely personal matters, is a cause of excitement for anyone interested in French literature. Likewise, her letters, with their acute observations of major figures of the court of Louis XIV, are of interest to students of seventeenth-century French society.
One of the new letters, however, is of dramatic and wholly unexpected significance, for it records a personal encounter--previously unknown, and entirely unexpected--between Mme de Sevigne and the English philosopher John Locke, and contains a brief summary of his political thought. This is not the place to discuss the issue of the letter's authenticity, or of the problems it poses for the historian. It is sufficient here to state that all available evidence confirms that the letter was in fact written by Mme de Sevigne to a friend, the Comte de Grinaud, in 1688. We have no proof of her encounter with Locke other than the letter itself. No grounds can be offered for supposing that she fabricated the story; she is not known to have invented episodes in any other letter, and had no reason to do so in this one. Moreover, her summary of Locke's thought, though biased, suggests that she had heard his views at first hand.
[Letter 23, Lanchairdon Collection]
Everyone in Paris, my dear Grinaud, is talking of no other subject than the overthrow of the hapless king of England, and the summoning of that absurd little Dutchman to take the English throne. I assure you that even Mme de Maintenon is now entirely forgotten; the woman could fall from favor with His Majesty, an...